Eunuch is the common name of "eunuch". We watch a lot of costume dramas, and it is easy to form a misunderstanding: from the beginning of China's history with hereditary dynasties, eunuchs must first become eunuchs and then enter the palace. But the actual situation is not like this, before the Eastern Han Dynasty, the male attendants on duty in the inner palace were also not eunuchs; starting from the Eastern Han Dynasty, considering the large number of female relatives in the inner palace, in order to avoid the bad situation of male attendants entering and leaving, all eunuchs were used.
And we also know that in ancient times, eunuchs were a force that could influence the government of the dynasty, and they could even compete with the clique of civil officials to kill you to death, and no one was accustomed to anyone. The Eastern Han Dynasty, tang dynasty and Ming Dynasty were the most serious periods of eunuch chaos in history, of which the Ming Dynasty was the most special. The Eastern Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty did not show their power until the middle of the Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty was different, and the power of eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty expanded from the time of the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di.
How much does it inflate? A few Ming eunuchs were named at random, such as Wang Zhen, Wang Zhi, Liu Jin, and Wei Zhongxian, who were all powerful figures who could decide whether the imperial court would send troops or not; who could establish the West Factory to press the East Factory and the Jinyi Wei; who could arrest and interrogate the ministers without the emperor's consent, and who could be convicted of whatever crime they wanted; who could weave a network of eunuchs throughout the country to monitor the inside and outside of the imperial court, almost shoulder to shoulder with the emperor.
In addition to not being able to produce offspring, the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty achieved a certain degree that was really called a scenery, and the money and power were both collected, that is, the reputation was not very good. For example, Wei Zhongxian, the "History of Ming" records a lot of things about his scenery, such as a person who was enlightened by the whole family's chicken dog ascension to heaven, "edict zhongxian nephew Liangqing as Suningbo, give the mansion and Zhuangtian, and issue iron coupons", such as a bunch of officials scrambling to pat him on the ass, "Zhejiang Inspector Pan Ruzhen please build a shrine for Zhongxian ... Thus the praises of merit followed, and all the temples began from then on. ”
The temple was originally built to commemorate the figures who had great merits in history, Wei Zhongxian's merits were not much, but the chaos tossed a bunch, the tangtang inspector requested to build a shrine for him, to put it bluntly, that is, Wei Zhongxian's power was too great, and everyone tried their best to climb it. One of the main reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was the fierce internal struggle, and eunuchs were the main force of this struggle, but even if we did not watch the history and only watched the TV series, we can find that the eunuchs of the Qing Dynasty are not as beautiful as the Ming Dynasty.
Speaking of Qing Dynasty eunuchs, there are also a few great eunuchs who are more beautiful, such as An Dehai, Li Lianying, and Xiao Dezhang, but no matter how much they accumulate wealth and receive weight, they have not reached the level of dictatorship and chaos, and they still have to be people with their tails between their legs. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty's management of eunuchs was more effective, and they could not reach the peak of the Ming Dynasty's profession in any way, so how did the Qing Emperor manage these people?
Just as the so-called "lessons from the front car after the car", the Qing Dynasty has learned the lessons of the Ming Dynasty since the shunzhi emperor period, and strictly disciplined the eunuchs, first of all, the eunuchs must be used, but the number should be reduced, the "Qing History Draft" records that the number of eunuchs in the palace during the Shunzhi Emperor period was more than a thousand, shunzhi specially issued an edict saying that I read the history, Yu Shun's Xia Shang period did not use eunuchs, after the Qin and Han dynasties used more, there were more disasters;
Therefore, in order to put an end to this phenomenon, the officials of our Qing Dynasty were absolutely not allowed to have friendships with the eunuchs of the inner court, and once they found out, they would not blame me for turning my face and mercilessly punishing them; Shunzhi even made an iron stele and erected it in the Jiaotai Hall, on which it was written that the eunuchs should dare to make friends with the ministers to discuss the government and politics, talk about the good and bad of the officials, blow the wind in the emperor's ears, and all of them were executed.
In the Qianlong Emperor period, there were more masters in the palace, and the number of eunuchs was more than that of the Shunzhi period, but the number was still limited to less than three thousand, it can be said that from Shunzhi to Qianlong after 4 generations of emperors, the number of eunuchs was not as much as in the Ming Dynasty to tens of thousands, and the number of eunuchs was limited to the possibility of eunuchs engaging in wind and rain.
Then there is the fact that the Qing emperors have been deliberately degrading the social status of eunuchs. Both Kangxi and Yongzheng said that eunuchs were lowly and could let them enter the palace, "Nagging the rank of the character, it is already a non-division of long favors", just as the so-called upward and downward effects, during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, he patrolled Luanyang, and inspector Zhang Ruoying caught an illegal internal prisoner and beat him hard, Qianlong not only did not criticize Zhang Ruoying, but also praised him for his promotion, just imagine how low the status of the eunuch is, it is good to save his life, how can he try to interfere in the government affairs?
In addition, the Qing Emperor spent a lot of thought on the system of managing eunuchs, Kangxi set up the Internal Affairs Office to manage the affairs of the court, the eunuch management agency was subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it was not forgotten that the Minister in Charge of the Interior Ministry was not a eunuch, but a Manchu princely minister, and he Yan had done this work, so the Qing Dynasty eunuchs were deliberately suppressed, the emperor and the ministers were staring at them, and from the power point of view, a "partition" was formed between the emperor and the eunuchs, and the eunuchs could not casually report to the emperor and affect the promotion and demotion of the ministers.
Qing Dynasty eunuchs can not speak loudly, move around at will, be lazy, eat wine and gamble, and complain about any small mistakes; when Qianlong was in power, he was particularly "legislated"; a eunuch named Gao Yun was sentenced to capital punishment for inquiring more about the affairs of the government, and Qianlong was sentenced to death for "repeatedly cutting and suppressing the eunuch group, with a clean wind track", so the eunuchs of the Qing Dynasty were afraid all day long, and did not dare to talk much in order to save their lives.
The Qianlong Emperor reigned for 60 years, and the restraint on eunuchs was maintained, and he stipulated that the eunuchs in the palace would be four grades if they died, so in the end, "eunuchs did not dare to do evil" in the Qianlong dynasty. After several generations of emperors, the general direction of the Qing Dynasty to degrade eunuchs was basically fixed, and even if a few great eunuchs appeared in the late Qing Dynasty, they did not dare to casually extend their hands to the front.
It can be said that the Qing Dynasty's management of eunuchs is relatively successful, on the professional quality and management ability, the Qing Emperor is generally more means, if you see a certain eunuch in the Qing Palace drama for whom or something, find a certain minister or even the prince to intercede, or even casually blow the wind to talk, jump up and down, then the screenwriter must not understand the history of the Qing Dynasty or for the needs of the plot to increase fiction, so it is really unreliable to rely on TV dramas to understand history.